(a) Field
The subject matter disclosed generally relates to a system for determining the noise level (aka acoustic “footprint”) of a vehicle at remote location.
(b) Related Prior Art
There is a need for a tool which allows for calculating the noise propagation of various vehicles of the fleet involved in the execution of an operation/mission.
There exist several commercially available software programs used to calculate vehicle noise and sound propagation. These programs are used primarily for planning roadway development but they are not designed nor are they suitable for use in military applications.
Cost wise, these programs are cost prohibitive because their licenses are very expansive to provide to a large amount of soldiers.
From the standpoint of practicality, these programs require powerful computers and use a substantial amount of processing resources available on these computers, in order to run. By contrast, soldiers require a portable tool that can be carried along in the mission.
Another barrier to practicality is the fact that these programs require a great deal of expertise on the part of the user, and detailed terrain and meteorological data that cannot be available to a soldier planning or conducting an operation in the field.
From the standpoint of accuracy, these programs are not designed for military applications and therefore do not respond to the needs of soldiers in the field. In particular, these programs are designed to estimate a noise level of vehicles on highways, and thus, they perform the calculations based on the assumption that all these vehicles have the same noise signature. By contrast, the noise signature of military vehicles is quite different from domestic vehicles. Such noise signature may even vary from one vehicle to another based on the size and shape of the vehicle, size and power of the engine, the muffler configuration, number of wheels, type of tires etc.
Therefore, the accuracy of noise level prediction achieved by these programs is quite low and inconsistent.
For these reasons, a new tool is needed which may be implemented on portable computing devices and used by an average soldier under operational conditions.